Hunter Smitherman: Week 12 Pepakura Creature

Individual Portion:

Concept:

    The concept for this final project was based on the prompt of creating a unique creature to build with the pepakura technique at a 3-foot scale. To create a unique creature I first researched some bi-pedal animals, because I wanted something that could stand. I found interest in the unique characteristics of a kangaroo and decided I wanted to pair this animal with a small animal with similarly interesting characteristics. I researched more and found a picture of a duck and thought that the head and neck would fit perfectly onto a kangaroo's body. I then drew my concept, mixing the two animals and starting modeling within Autodesk Maya.

Techniques:

    I brought my concept drawings into Autodesk Maya and began modeling my pepakura creature. I first began modeling with a simple primitive cylinder and began extruding this cylinder at the beak of the creature. I worked my way down the drawing making sure to model the whole body and then come back to model the limbs. When working on the bottom of the creature I wanted to include a tail similar to that of a duck, but also use this tail as standing support so that the sculpture has 3 points of contact with the floor. I kept myself aware of the low-poly style that was required in the assignment and made sure to not include too many details that would not be visible in the final sculpture. I next modeled the legs and arms and also used a cylinder and extruded the feet, legs, and thighs of the creature. I made the hands and arms of the creature thin to resemble some of the reference imagery I had. After modeling the limbs of the creature I used Boolean Union to combine all the parts to create my creature. I used the multi-cut tool to fix some of the polygons so the final pepakura sculpture would fold properly. I also used the Mesh > Reduce command to cut the polygon count to a usable amount.

    My class used the Pepakura Designer Application to slice our 3D models into vector layouts to laser cut our projects from thin cardboard. This Pepakura Application allowed us to slice our 3D models and had an interface where we could lay out the cut slices on certain sizes of boxes. I found this application very easy to use and the best way to cut my model was to slice it into rings.

Materials:

    After modeling and slicing my pepakura creature, I used the 3D model of my creature in Keyshot to give a representation of my ideas for the real-life sculpture. I decided to use a grass texture to give the creature "hair" and I colored this texture a brownish color to match my reference imagery. I also wanted to give the creature a different material on the beak to make it look more duck-like. I also used this beak material for the front of the feet and the hands and created a darker-colored grass material for the tail. For the lighting, I used the environmental lighting and positioned the light where and how bright I wanted it. For the environment image, I placed the creature in a deserted type area as I felt that's the most logical place this kind of creature would be in.  

Group Portion:

    My group was comprised of myself, Zachary Alameri, and Clay Purdy. The group discussed after we all finished our 3D models and we chose my design to build with pepakura. The sculpture is called "Duckaroo" because it's a combination of a Duck and a Kangaroo. This model was chosen due to the simple and low-polygonal structure of the model, the practicality of build time and post-processing, and the uniqueness of the creature's characteristics. 

    The duties of each member were divided up by each individual's expertise within the pipeline of creating this pepakura sculpture. I was involved in the process of the 3D model, Pepakura Designer, and Laser Cutting of this creature. I tweaked the 3D model to provide a workable and properly folding pepakura creature. I sliced the model using the Pepakura Designer and made sure the flaps had the correct orientation and included the edge id's to identify which edges line up. I also was taught how to format and cut the vector layouts with the laser machine at TheLab.ms Makerspace by Doug Emes. 

    When tweaking the 3D model, it was hard to fix everything wrong with the model in a single pass and I found myself constantly switching from Pepakura Designer back to Maya to fix any polygons that would otherwise be unusable. When attempting to cut this project it was very hard to find the time when the laser machine would be free of other classmates. The laser was simple to figure out and the correct settings to cut the cardboard were a little hard to find at first. The build portion when mostly well, with a couple bad flaps and tightly fitting pieces. 

    I also decided to 3D print this model to have a glimpse of what the final product would look like. This was one of my first ever 3D prints and I'm glad I was able to successfully bring this Duckaroo to life.